The only thing going in is taxpayer money…
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
In a short video on the NAACP website, Mayor Mark Mallory welcomes NAACP delegates to this week’s national convention in Cincinnati and gives some examples of Cincinnati’s recent renaissance, including the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (NURF). But NURF is not the good example of revitalization that Mayor Mallory suggests it is. Like most government-funded projects, NURF has been a problem from the start. The museum’s construction was made possible only through heavy taxpayer subsidy; 46 million of the 110 million dollars for the project was provided by either the federal, state, county, or local government. This number doesn’t include the value of the land which the City of Cincinnati donated for the building. It gets worse from there. From a Cincinnati Enquirer article in June:
